


Autoplay

by mantisbelle



Category: RWBY
Genre: Fluff, M/M, based on a tumblr prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8014669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Qrow’s been having trouble sleeping, so there’s clearly no better way to deal with that than breaking into your husband’s computer which may or may not hold matters of national security on it so you can watch videos on the internet. </p><p>Yup. No better way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autoplay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubyisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyisms/gifts).



> So a while back, rubyisms sent me a specific prompt, and I didn't know what to do with it for a very, very long time. When I finally figured it out, this is what happened, and it ended up running surprisingly long. 
> 
> So that said, here's my response to "Oh boy. I'm on the weird side of YouTube again."
> 
> Hopefully you all enjoy! Comments are love!

Ok, so Qrow  _ really  _ shouldn't have been in James' office.

Generally, being in James' office when he wasn't there was considered  _ very _ taboo. There were a lot of reasons for that ranging from James needing his privacy, to the fact that James was usually dabbling in classified information, to the fact that Qrow had a habit of not leaving things where they belonged.

However, that wasn't usually enough to stop him. Tonight, for example, Jimmy was away on a mission, and Qrow was left alone in Atlas with the apartment all to himself and  _ nothing  _ to do. He figured that there were things that he could have done, like play video games, or clean, or be productive in the most general sense, but he  _ really  _ didn't want to do those things.

No.

Tonight, he just wanted to watch silly videos, and he was going to be damned if he was going to do it uncomfortably.

Tonight, he was in James' office because of the fact that James not only had an obnoxiously large desktop, (really, who needed a monitor that was 34 inches wide, let alone  _ three  _ of them?) but James also owned the single most comfortable desk chair known to mankind.

And that wasn't even to  _ mention _ that James' office was probably the best furnished room in the entire penthouse. It even had a cot in one corner for the nights where James couldn't pull himself away from his work for more than a few minutes at a time.

Because of all of these things, Qrow dragged himself into James' office  at one in the morning, unable to sleep with a blanket wrapped around himself. He sank into James' desk chair, and folded himself up into it by curling into a ball.

Once Qrow was comfortable, he reached out for the desk, and pulled himself closer to it. Once he was there, Qrow reached out, grabbed the computer mouse, and wiggled it.

All at once, the three oversized screens came to life, with two at his sides letting off a soft blue glow, while the one directly in front of him- wall mounted, lit up a similar color, though this one displayed a string of messages.

First, in the upper left hand corner of the screen, it displayed the time, followed by a short weather broadcast, and a list of messages to James' two emails that  _ weren't  _ classified.

Qrow ignored those, instead clicking on the message that was scrawled across the center of the screen which simply read "Hello James." Clicking the name replaced it with a password entry box.

Of course.

Qrow frowned and clicked on it, leaning forward enough to get to James' keyboard. He thought for a moment, wondering if it was possible to guess James' password based on the wear on the keyboard- unlikely, Qrow thought. James worked like Qrow drank. Keyboard wear looked consistent everywhere.

He frowned, and began to just guess at passwords. Names of James' projects that had gotten off the ground, names of James' parents, even military projects of James' that had gotten off the ground and the serial number that was printed on the inside of James' metal arm.

To his surprise, eventually a hint popped up, with a note from James.

> _ Qrow, please stop trying to break into my computer. AkWedPyIPd _

Qrow stared at the hint, trying to figure out what it could possibly mean for a minute before he realized that the useful parts were almost entirely in shorthand.

He wracked his brain, trying to figure it out piece by piece.

_ Ak _ , probably Atlesian Knights. The current model James was working on was the 210, so Qrow kept that in mind.  _ Wed _ , probably their wedding date.  _ PyP _ was a mystery, he was sure that would come up when he got to it, and then there was  _ Id. _ Either James' serial number or his military identification, if Qrow knew how James tended to be.

Alright then.

Qrow began to crack the code, based on what he knew about James. The  _ PyP  _ string was particularly troublesome. It wasn't until Qrow leaned back in that comfortable desk chair that the answer finally came to him when he saw a picture of James, with a tiny copper haired girl sitting proudly on his right arm.

Of course.

Penny Polendina.

Qrow typed in the likely password, first correct, but then stopped before submitting it. This was James, doing it normally would make too much sense. Qrow emptied the entry, and started over, this time going backwards until he got a result.

_ 9636#ynneP718012 _

To Qrow's pleasure, after almost an hour of trying to figure out the password manually, he was admitted into James' computer with a second "Hello James" from the computer.

On each side, Qrow was almost immediately assaulted with James' workflow.

On Qrow's right, was James' email from Atlas Academy. It looked like finals were coming up- there were a  _ lot  _ of concerned emails from James’ students.

On Qrow's left, the computer opened up to a second password screen. This was the monitor that James did most of his military work from, Qrow guessed. He wasn't going to mess with that. He knew better.

Lastly, at dead center, there wasn't anything. Instead, that monitor displayed a clean background that almost made it look like a window against the wall. He wiggled the mouse around, and when he saw it on the center screen, Qrow smiled.

He snuggled into his blanket, and began to go through what he could in James' personal files. He found photographs, mostly of the two of them in their rare leisure time together, he found videos of Penny practicing, and he even found their wedding video, which made him smile.

After an hour of searching through James' files, Qrow opened up the web browser and went to RWTWB, a video sharing site. To his surprise, James' account was logged in, and it looked like James had last been watching a video on roller skate construction- not that Qrow had even the slightest idea why James of all people would be interested in such things.

Qrow went to the search bar, and typed in "birds" as a basic search parameter. The site gave him millions of options, and so Qrow began clicking from video to video, letting the birds calm him down in hopes that he'd be able to manage some sleep.

When he found a short documentary about ravens and hit play, Qrow fell asleep. He should have turned off the autoplay earlier.

He didn't.

 

* * *

 

 

James dragged himself home at three in the morning, feeling like he was a little bit more than just a little exhausted. His clothes were torn, he was dirty, and he was ready to drop at any moment once he was cleaned up.

At the door, James kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his armor. However, he stopped, seeing a glow and hearing noise from his office.

That was very,  _ very _ bad.

James reached for his gun, checked it was loaded, and began to creep through the apartment as silently as he could. He reached the wall just outside of his office and stopped.

Breathed quietly.

Checked the left corner, and stepped in front of the doorway. However, he didn't know what he was seeing at first. There was nobody there looking to try and steal military secrets, instead his computer was playing some sort of strange video that James didn't even  _ want _ to try and understand.

Slowly, James made his way into the room. "Hello?" He asked, raising his voice slightly.

The desk chair creaked, and James heard a quiet "what?" come from it.

Qrow.

Of course.

James sighed, put the safety back on his gun, and set it down on a bookshelf before approaching the desk chair. With his right arm, he took the back of the chair and spun it.

In the chair, Qrow was sitting, having already fallen back to sleep. James sighed, and spoke up.

"Qrow?"

Qrow picked up his head, barely opened his eyes, and looked at James. "Jimmy?"

"Hey." James greeted the shorter man. He reached out, wrapped his arms around Qrow, and lifted him bridal-style to bring him over to the cot in the corner of his office. "What're you doing?"

"Videos." Qrow said, snuggling into James' chest. "Couldn't sleep." He picked his head up, and squinted at the computer screens. His eyes almost immediately widened as he realized what was happening. "Oh boy," Qrow started, squirming in James' arms. "I'm on the weird part of RWTWB again."

"Again?"

"Yeah, Qrow began to explain himself. He reached up to his face and rubbed at his left eye with the back of his hand. "I wanted to watch some videos to help me sleep and I guess I left the autoplay on."

He was about to stand up, but was only waved back down by James' gloved hand. James didn't say anything, simply seated himself in the warmth of his chair, and oh, it was comfortable after a long mission and hummed quietly.

James grabbed the mouse, and started by closing the RWTWB tab that was still playing some sort of video involving a python and twenty tacos.

James was very secure to say that he  _ really  _ didn't want to know what that was all about.

He could feel Qrow's eyes on him the entire time that he worked to re-secure his computer. He didn't like it when Qrow used his workspace, it was always an uncomfortable experience for James for a few reasons.

About seventy five percent of those reasons had to do with the fact that James' computer was home to some secrets of national security that he  _ really  _ couldn't afford to have leaked.

James trusted Qrow, but there were some things that he didn't want to have to gamble on.

"So," James started, feeling his eyes beginning to hurt as the glow from his screens bore into his eyes. He hadn't slept in probably two or three days, and so this was really the absolute last thing that he wanted to do, but he had to do it. "What compelled you to do this in here instead of the living room?"

Qrow yawned, curling himself up on the cot in the corner and trying to find the blanket that James kept underneath it. "I just missed you."

"Is that all?"

"And you have the best furniture in here." Qrow added, finding the blanket and humming quietly as he pulled it up and onto the cot. "So I got in and watched some videos."

James sighed, figuring that this was fairly typical behavior for Qrow, if nothing else. He shook his head, tried to push back a small smile, and went to the settings on his computer that would let him reset his password.

There was a moment where James hesitated, trying to think of whether it was even necessary for him to do that. He supposed that in theory he could set up a profile for Qrow on his computer- the machine could definitely handle having multiple users, that was for sure.

But it was just a matter of security.

The lights still bore into his eyes, and James gave up, reached out, and just turned off his computer. He was going to have to go back through and remove all of the weird stuff from his history later, but that wasn't such a big deal. He just needed his computer secure again.

"Coming to bed, General?" Qrow asked, his voice a quiet whining sound as he stretched and buried his face into James' pillow. "Because I don't know that you'll fit."

James chuckled and shook his head. He seated himself on the edge of the bed, and reached out to pet down the mess of hair that was atop Qrow's head. "I would like to go to bed." James whispered, watching as Qrow shifted his head to nuzzle into the palm of his hand. "But I'd rather do so in a proper bed."

Qrow hummed under his touch, and nodded slowly. "Bed." He mumbled. James felt Qrow's arms wrap around his waist, and James didn't do anything for a moment, just letting himself revel in the comfort of that touch. Slowly, James hugged himself in a way so that he could hug Qrow's arms closer to him.

"C'mon." James whispered, shifting slightly. "It's time to get up. Grab your blanket." He began to stand up, and Qrow was soon to follow after him, with a weird, goofy smile on his face. James wasn't the only one that was exhausted, by the looks of things.

Once James was upright, so was Qrow. The thinner man picked up the two blankets that were in the room and wrapped them around himself before the two of them walked out of James' office,  down the hallway, and settled into to James' too-large bed for the rest of the night.

The two of them flopped down into bed together. James was ready to sleep forever almost immediately once he was in the bed. However, that wasn't going to be possible, not for a few minutes. Carefully, James ensured that Qrow was comfortable in bed, and got up so that he could strip out of his dirty clothes and maybe even take a shower before going to bed.

James was only away from the bed for a grand total of 14 minutes. When he came back, Qrow was cuddled in against the blankets and fast asleep, with an empty space at his side that was just big enough for James to slip into and call his own.

James snuggled in alongside Qrow, gently pulling his husband close to him before drifting off to sleep himself. In the morning, he would have things to go ahead and fix, but that could all wait.

Right now, James just wanted to sleep next to his husband and feel the comfort of his own bed for the night.

In the end, it was a lovely night.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


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